


Student Driver

by ShadowsOffense



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: Gen, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-24
Updated: 2013-08-24
Packaged: 2017-12-24 11:20:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/939377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadowsOffense/pseuds/ShadowsOffense
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No smoking, no gum, and no dying.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Student Driver

“No gum.”

The teenager sighed, giving him a look that only someone under twenty could. The one that said he was the oldest, stupidest thing on the planet and didn’t even hint that she had a concept of upholstered car seats and cleanliness. He crossed his arms and she sighed again, turning to spit her gum in an impressive arc to splat onto the pavement. Where anyone who walked there regularly risked stepping in it. Like him.

He was the one who sighed, this time. “Get in.”

He’d signed on as a drivers ed instructor hoping to help stop the teenagers that passed under his tutelage from becoming just another roadway statistic. No matter how annoying they were. This one probably had a mom who loved her, or a father who doted. She’d grow out of this stage, given a chance; age, wisdom, and maturity all went hand in hand. It was his job to see that she didn’t die in a fiery crash before she got there.

He walked around the car as she hopped behind the wheel, eyes suddenly bright and worlds away from the teenage apathy she’d been displaying. He couldn’t quite decide if this was an improvement or not and he rested his hand heavily on the roof for a moment before he got in.

She was fiddling with everything, any knob or dial. Running her fingers over it, pressing or twisting anything that could be pressed or twisted. As he watched she turned the wipers all the way on, then back off. Thankfully the car wasn’t started. Oh, Christ, she’d reset the mileage. “Stop that!” he barked.

She cringed, turning to look at him with big blue eyes that probably had gotten her out of more trouble than he wanted to know about. Shit, he knew it was an act and he still felt bad for her.

“Seat and mirrors,” he told her gruffly, looking away. “Adjust them so you can fully depress both the brake and gas without stretching or reaching, but aren’t so close that it’s hard to take your foot off of them. Mirrors should be directed so that you can see out all of the back windshield in the review and have just the edge of the side of your car in the side mirrors, at a height where you will be able to see the cars in the other lanes.”

“Roger, roger!” She smiled so hugely he blinked. Enthusiastically grabbing the lever under her seat, she then kicked off hard enough that she shot backwards, the driver’s chair practically becoming a third seat in the back. “Whoops.”

He rubbed a hand across his forehead as she began bringing it forward, this time in little lurching increments. When she got level with him again, he could see that her face was bright red.

She was nervous, he realized belatedly. She’d hid it well. “You’re doing fine,” he told her, surreptitiously tapping the second, emergency instructor brake on his side on the car, feeling it press back comfortingly against his foot.

He waited as she tapped the petals, moved the seat, tapped the petals, moved the seat. It was like waiting for a cat to sit down. He’d never gotten in a car with a new driver who hadn’t done that routine. When she was done, she looked over at him for approval.

“Mirrors,” he reminded her.

“’K,” she messed with the review and then found the switch that controlled the side mirrors with intuitive quickness. Up, down, in, out, just like the seat. When she was done, at last, at least he didn’t have to tell her to put on her seat belt.

“Alright,” he said. “Now, when you turn the key-”

She jumped the gun, turning the key all the way and holding it too far as the engine shirked in protest, doing precisely what he’d been about to warn her not to do. The radio came on too, so loudly he cringed reflexively. She’d messed with that too.

One of his hands slapped the button to turn the radio off, the other covered hers over the ignition and turned the engine off. “There are levels,” he said slowly in the resulting silence. Anger would make her more nervous. His head was starting to throb. “Of how far you have to turn the key to start the engine. The first click, here,” he demonstrated. “Turns on the electrical systems but doesn’t start the motor...”

He walked her through it, had her repeat what he said, then took his hand away.

“Ok,” he took a deep breath. “Try again.”

She was still smiling as she turned the key, but it was not a cheerful expression. Underneath the grin, she looked rather like she expected it to bite her. Thankfully, this time, the car rumbled on without protest. A good, and only, good thing about this kid was that he didn’t have to show her anything twice.

“Now put the car in reverse, _look behind you and **keep** looking._ If it’s clear, you may slowly, lightly hit the gas.”

He kept watch too as they moved mostly slowly backward.

Things actually seemed to improve from there. He had her do a pattern of slow turns through the parking lot before letting her pulled out onto the street. The kid actually had a pretty good sense of spatial awareness. Passenger seat drivers all their lives, his students were used to the center line being safely further away and he’d consequently gotten used to riding with the passenger side tire often drifting into the shoulder, or a little further, as they tried to get the lines back to where they were used to them. The girl, however, managed to stay in the lines and on the road.

It was on their way back that it happened.

“Left turn here,” he told her.

“’K,” she replied, turning the wheel right.

“No, _left,_ ” he repeated.

“What?” She started.

She meant to hit the brake. He knew she meant to hit the brake. They lurched back into there seats as the car leap forward. She cut the wheel hard, trying to go left, spinning them, her foot on the gas, his just starting to hit the break. They both shouted in alarm, hers trailing into a nervous giggle as one wheel, his side of course, popped up onto the curb. He grabbed the door handle reflexively. Under his fingers, something gave. The door opened. He was blinking up at the sky, thanking god he could still feel his toes.

...

Batman rose slowly, achingly to his feet, watching as the lights of the Batmobile weaved away into the dark, shrill laughter still ringing in his ears. One moment his prisoner had been cuffed and compliant, the next her hands had grabbed the wheel, her foot mashing the gas as he stepped on the break. A tire had hit the curb...

“Where did she learn how to do that?” Batman wondered, aloud.


End file.
